Sometimes, as a test engineer, you have to deal with advanced technology, such as WebSockets position itself. — If you have ever tested HTTP API, then you will not encounter very difficulties with testing bidirectional messages. But there are a few features inherent in WebSockets which should be taken into account before starting testing. Theory A WebSocket is a persistent connection between client and server. WebSockets provide a full-duplex…

As a test engineer I have been using WebdriverIO with Selenium WebDriver for frontend automation for a few years. — Recently I got an opportunity to move away from Selenium and therefore had to compare alternatives (inside my usual stack of TypeScript and Node.js): Cypress, as the most hyped automation tool; Playwright, as a more high-level tool close to the browser. Puppeteer did not hit my shortlist because it is…

As a web application test engineer, you need to test backend (APIs) as easy as frontend (UI in a browser). — Dozens of articles appear every year that tell about «the best tools for API testing» including Swagger (which is a tool for documentation and should be implemented by developers), REST Assured (which is a DSL for Java projects and requires programming skills), JMeter (which is a tool for load testing)…

The DevTools «Network» tab provides almost everything for API testing — from checking responses to making requests. — As a web application test engineer, you need to test integration of backend (APIs) with frontend (UI in a browser). During this activity the DevTools «Network» tab should be opened as a «must have» tool, because of the features described below: Network Activity Request Details Advanced Filters

If you use cURL for requests to an API with JSON response in the body, you know that feeling of frustration at the sight of the wall of text in the console — I am using cURL as a tool for testing REST API — make HTTP/HTTPS requests. In most cases, the response body contains JSON. I assume that the reader knows what cURL (wiki) is for and is familiar with JSON (wiki) format. All the methods described below will work if…

Sometimes, as a test engineer, you need to perform a full-scale check of your web application for vulnerabilities. — Web application security testing is not the topic of one article, it takes a whole book. So I will focus only on the example of scanning for XSS (cross-site scripting) with one special tool — Burp Suite. You can try to find XSS vulnerabilities manually, but it won’t be productive…

Sometimes, as a test engineer, you need to check that your web application is not vulnerable. — I am not going to describe what security testing is, because there are many introductory articles about it. …

My first dive into cryptocurrency revealed the pitfalls that are difficult to suspect until you encounter it. — What I had at the beginning: USDT and TRX tokens at Binance; MetaMask crypto wallet. Why MetaMask? A few friends advised that this is «a simple wallet for beginners, but works only with Ethereum»; Googling about USDT shows that it is hosted on the Ethereum blockchain, so it should work.

A brief guide to Ernest Hemingway’s Constantinople — In 1922 Ernest Hemingway lived in Paris and worked as a freelance journalist for «The Toronto Daily Star». The newspaper ordered him to Constantinople (renamed Istanbul in 1930) to cover the war between Greece and Turkey. …